Every February during Black History Month there are odes to Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. Or, the occasional spotlight on the likes of Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes.

But, in an age when scientific knowledge is the coin of the realm, it's a shame Ernest Everett Just — an African-American biologist who spent 20 summers conducting research at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole during the Jim Crow era — has almost been forgotten.

On a second-floor hallway wall inside MBL's Lillie building hangs a picture, a small biographical sketch and a postage stamp display commemorating the life and work of E.E. Just. Born in Charleston, S.C. in 1883, Just's dockworker parents sent him to school in New Hampshire where in 1903 he was accepted into Dartmouth College and was the only student in his class to graduate magna cum laude.

Yet, despite his emergent genius, the racial attitudes in academia at that time didn't allow for Just to teach at mainstream colleges. He accepted a position at Howard University in Washington, D.C., one of the most prominent black colleges in the country, where Just distinguished himself as a professor, chaired the school's department of zoology, and established its master's degree program in that field.

But it was at the University of Chicago, where Just earned his doctorate, that he became acquainted with the renowned embryologist Frank Lillie, who invited Just to work with him in Woods Hole. While at MBL studying the fertilization of marine invertebrates, Just evolved from a student apprentice to an internationally sought expert in the field.

When I saw a portrait of him hanging in the hallway at MBL last year, I didn't know who he was and made a note to myself to learn more about him.

MIT professor Kenneth Manning, whose book "Black Apollo of Science: The Life of Earnest Everett Just" rescued Just from obscurity, told me he had a similar experience when he was a child growing up in South Carolina, not far from where Just was born.

"I first came across E.E. Just during Black History Month when I was a little kid. They would post up pictures of famous black people. There was one of Just but with no information about him," Manning said.

It wasn't until Manning was in college that he encountered a reference to Just as "'the quintessential example of the American dilemma.' It really sparked my interest," he said.

From 1976 to 1982, Manning spent most of his time in Woods Hole researching Just's life, including interviews with scientists who had worked with him. Just died in 1941, almost 10 years before Manning was born.

"He was someone who represented what science was all about, yet couldn't find a place in science in the United States. But he wasn't going to let race deter him. His whole life is one fascinating event after another," Manning said, noting how at one point in Just's career overseas he had been captured by Nazis while working in Germany.

In science, Manning said, Just "did fundamental work on fertilization in marine animals and that work has stood the test of time. His emphasis on the cell surface and not the nucleus is something that scientists today are really focused on."

The papers Just published led to major contributions to seminal texts in the field. And, Manning said, though the science has evolved, Just's legacy of "the absolute integrity for the high standards of the discipline and his commitment to pursuing knowledge transcends science."

For George Langford, former E.E. Just professor of Natural Sciences at Dartmouth and the recipient of the E.E. Just award from the American Society for Cell Biology, Just was a major influence on his career as an African-American scientist.

"First of all, he was a role model," Langford said. "Just was part of the Harlem Renaissance movement, which was designed to challenge the notion that blacks were not learned enough to contribute to the formal disciplines of music, literature and science. It was his work that debunked the notion that blacks could not contribute to scientific discoveries."

Personally, Langford said, he used the same research strategies Just followed while at MBL, which now has an endowed research fellowship in Just's name. "He realized he needed to establish international collaborations. I used that same strategy in my own research," he said.

More importantly, Langford said, Just was "a major contributor" to the understanding of environmental influences on the expression of genes. Langford said he was a pioneer in "epigenetics" — the study of changes in gene function that do not involve changes in DNA sequence.

"For me, he was really a Jackie Robinson figure who sort of broke the color line," Langford said.

Manning agreed, noting how at a time when science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education is being emphasized, spotlighting Just could make a difference in the lives of young students of color as it did for him when he was a child. And while Just may be more inspirational to black students, his scientific work transcends race.

"The way he handled marine animals — collecting and culturing them — are still real examples for any scientist," Manning said.

Here's an experiment for teachers looking for Black History Month ideas: Throw E.E. Just into the rotation. Learning King's "I Have a Dream" speech or a Langston Hughes verse is fine. But in a society and economy where science is front and center, Double E may be far more relevant.

That's not just "a black thing." It's a human thing anyone can understand. Just sayin'.

Sean Gonsalves can be reached at sgonsalves@capecodonline.com. Follow Sean Gonsalves on Twitter @SeanGonCCT.